Yoking Bret Easton Ellis to Hot Tub Time Machine and The National, 36-year-old book critic Taylor Antrim reflects upon the cultural dominance of sad middle-aged white guys:
Imperial Bedrooms is not great, but in its better moments the novel contributes to our culture’s rich seam of aging slacker angst. Correction: aging male slacker angst. Aren’t there any bummed-out women past the age of 35 expressing their feelings?
There’s at least one: Jennifer Egan, 47, whose kaleidoscopic new novel-in-stories A Visit From the Goon Squad should cement her reputation as one of America’s best, and least predictable, literary novelists.
He praises Goon Squad, concluding that “the aging Gen-X boy’s club has been broken up a little, and Egan’s obvious empathy for her characters feels like a balm.”
Score one for the ladies, there.
